Accel World - Volume 22 - Chapter 6

6

The Umesato Junior High boys’ kendo team lost in the quarterfinals in the group division and ended up not breaking into the top six, but Takumu fought hard in the individual division and got all the way to the semifinals. And although he eventually lost there, he qualified magnificently to go to the Kanto meet in August.

Haruyuki was pulling weeds around the animal hutch when Chiyuri mailed to tell him this, and he unconsciously stood and threw a fist up into the air. “All right!”

“Gah! What happened, C—Arita?”

“’Sup, Prez?”

UI> WHAT’S THE MATTER, ARITA?

Questioned in the physical voices of Shihoko and Reina Izeki, who were helping him weed, and via chat by Utai, who was cleaning the inside of the hutch, Haruyuki explained the reason for his exultation.

“Oh, amazing! Mayuzumi really is good, hmm?” Shihoko stood up and clapped lightly, a smile on her face, and Hoo woke up from his drowsing to flap his wings inside the hutch. He was still a little nervous, but he seemed to like Shihoko, even though it was their first time meeting.

“Whoa, Four Eyes gets the job done. The Kanto meet’s for real cool.”

UI> IT’S UNFORTUNATE ABOUT THE GROUP SECTION, BUT I JUST KNOW THAT MAYUZUMI WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE IT ALL THE WAY TO NATIONALS!

Haruyuki was as pleased with Reina and Utai’s praise as if they had been complimenting him personally. “Yup!” He thrust his chest out, but a prickling pain remained in the area around his heart.

It went without saying that Takumu didn’t know yet, but Utai, Akira, Satomi and Yume of the Petit Paquet group, and Rui Odagiri also were still unaware that Kuroyukihime was in a state of Unlimited EK in the Unlimited Neutral Field. She wanted to explain it to them herself at the meeting to be held that evening over dive call, so she had asked them to keep it from Utai and the others until then. They would also discuss exactly when to let the former Prominence group know what had happened.

He hadn’t been able to sense any change in Kuroyukihime in the car as they returned to Suginami along Yasukuni-dori Street after dropping Chiyuri off at the Budokan. He’d never been in an Unlimited EK situation, so he couldn’t really imagine what it was like, but he figured that if Kuroyukihime said it wasn’t that big of a deal, then maybe it wasn’t. Although he also felt like that was a bit of wishful thinking.

Nega Nebulus had never placed that much emphasis on Enemy hunting, so the fact that she couldn’t dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field would pose no particular obstacle to Legion business for the foreseeable future. But when he really thought about it carefully, the problem didn’t simply stop there. Because—

“…z. Heeey, Prez!”

“Huh! Ah! Yeah?!” Having had his cheek forcibly tugged, Haruyuki blinked his eyes rapidly as he awoke with a start.

At some point, Reina Izeki’s exasperated face had appeared before him and he unconsciously reeled backward.

“You’re that happy that Four Eyes made it into the top four?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Y-yeah, well, of course.” He bobbed his head up and down. “So…what did you need?”

“So I was just talking with the super prez, okay?” she started. “And, like, we were thinking maybe it’s time to get some more animals for the Animal Care Club to care for, y’know?”

“Hmm…Wh-what?!” Stunned, he turned to the inside of the hutch, and Utai nodded, grinning in her gym uniform. “More…In this hutch?”

UI> IF POSSIBLE, THAT WOULD BE IDEAL. BUT NORTHERN WHITE-FACED OWLS ARE NERVOUS BIRDS, SO IT’S NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT HOO WOULD ACCEPT THAT. PUT ANOTHER WAY, IF WE COULD BRING HIM A FRIEND, I THINK HOO WOULD ALSO BE ABLE TO RELAX MORE.

“Right.” Haruyuki nodded. “So then, like, I wonder how much it would cost if we tried to find another northern white-faced owl as a bride at the pet stores or something.”

Utai raised an eyebrow slightly before typing in the air. UI> I SUPPOSE SO. MOST LIKELY A DOMESTIC CB INDIVIDUAL…CB IS SHORT FOR CAPTIVE BRED, MEANING AN INDIVIDUAL THAT WAS BORN AND RAISED IN CAPTIVITY. THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE AROUND 300,000 YEN, I ASSUME.

“Three hundred…” Haruyuki froze in place for about two seconds, and then shook his head vigorously. “Th-that’s a bit out of reach. So then another kind of—very reasonably priced bird…Or we could build a new hutch next to this one and get an entirely different animal. Hmm.” He suddenly turned to stare at Reina intently.

She took a nervous step back. “Wh-what, Prez?”

“Oh. I was just wondering why you wanted more animals,” he said.

“Mmm.” Reina was in her gym uniform like Utai, having changed in the school building maybe, and she scratched her ponytailed head. “It’s just like, Hoo’s all alone except for when we come to take care of him, right? During the day, at night. It’s been bugging me for a while. I just figured it’d be nice if he had a friend.”

“……” At this slightly—well, fairly unexpected—answer, Haruyuki stared at Reina once more.

“You’re very kind, Izeki,” Shihoko said to the girl she had only met that day, a long stem of shepherd’s purse in her hand.

“Unh?! Th-that’s not it or anything.” Reina seemed embarrassed.

“I actually also take care of a pet as an afterschool activity.” Shihoko was referring not to an animal in the real world, however, but Coolu, the lesser-class Enemy the Petit Paquet group had made friends with in the Unlimited Neutral Field. Haruyuki couldn’t help but feel a shiver when she brought the Accelerated World up, but of course, Reina had no idea anything was amiss. “But when I can’t go see her, I end up leaving her alone aaaaaallll that time. I’m always wishing she could make a friend to play with.”

“Yeah? Right.” Reina nodded in agreement, and then turned to slap Haruyuki hard on the back. “We gotta have more animals, Prez! Three hundred thousand’s not happening, but we gotta find someone who can live in this hutch with Hoo, y’know?”

“R-right…”

“And…” The hand slapping his back suddenly slipped around his neck and yanked him in like Reina was putting him in a headlock. She brought her face up alongside his. “And like, you got another new girl in here! What’s goin’ on with your relationships, Prez?!”

“N-nothing’s going on!” Haruyuki shook his head frantically, and Shihoko and Utai both cocked their heads to one side at the same time.

Just as they finished the feeding and cleaning, the school bell informed them that it was four o’clock. Even at this hour, the July summer sky was still plenty bright. Reina left them inside the school building, saying she was going to stop by the shower room, and at the school gates Haruyuki saw off Utai, who was walking home, and Shihoko, who was taking the bus from Shin-Koenji. He then stepped into the shadow of the wall and opened his e-money account on his virtual desktop.

His allowance was five hundred yen a day, including lunch money. Up until the fall of grade seven, bullies had extorted him every day for snacks and juice, so he never had anything left over. But now that Kuroyukihime had taken care of them for him, he could save three hundred yen if he kept himself to a sandwich and a carton of milk at lunch, and if he brought a packed lunch, he could save the whole five hundred. On top of that, he’d basically stopped buying games lately, so his account was charged with a pretty decent sum.

He closed the window and, after thinking for half a minute, Haruyuki turned his feet toward Asagaya, the opposite direction from his house.

Once he’d walked about a kilometer along Shinoume Highway and stopped in at a few shops in the shopping area by Minami-Asagaya Station, he headed south into the residential area. Eventually, his destination came into view, a somehow foreign-looking collection of trim white town houses. URB Asagaya Residences, a housing complex with a ninety-year history.

Of course, the buildings had been rebuilt in recent years, and the majority of the residences had been turned into large-scale condos, but in just this one corner, the initial look remained. Retracing the route in his memory, he stepped onto the side street from the main drive and came to a stop in front of one of the town houses. After staring at it briefly, he approached the gatepost and a holowindow was displayed in his field of view. He pressed the doorbell button and waited.

Finally, a face popped up in the window—Kuroyukihime, whom he’d said goodbye to at Umesato Junior High two hours earlier.

“H-Haruyuki?! What’s the matter, all of a sudden?! Did something happen?!” Kuroyukihime asked, rapid-fire.

Haruyuki bowed his head, deeply. “Uh, um, I’m sorry for coming over all of a sudden! It’s not that anything in particular happened. Um, uhhh, it’s, uh…” He was stuck for words, unable to concisely explain his own actions.

After staring at him for about five seconds, Kuroyukihime smiled wryly. “It must be hot outside. You might as well come in.”

“O-okay!” After bowing neatly once more, he opened the steel gate after it unlocked electronically and stepped onto the premises. Just as he came to stand in front of the building, the door opened, and Kuroyukihime’s real face popped out.

“I just got out of the bath,” she told him. “Apologies for my appearance.”

And indeed her outfit of a large T-shirt and shorts was covering less than when they’d had the sleepover at the Arita house, but Haruyuki wasn’t about to object. He shook his head vigorously from side to side, and Kuroyukihime smiled again as she beckoned him inside.

“All right, come in then.”

“O-okay. Thanks for having me.”

On his second visit, Kuroyukihime’s home was as neat and tidy as ever. The one-room space with the loft was almost too large for a single teenager living by herself. There was little to nothing in the twenty-five-square-meter living room, so the enormous ninety-centimeter aquarium in the southeast corner drew the eye.

Haruyuki wanted to take a peek in the aquarium right away, but first, he held up the plastic bags dangling from both hands. “Um. Here. Supplies.”

“Wh-what?!”

He spread the contents of the bag out on the dining table in front of a stunned Kuroyukihime. “Um, Cobb salad, squash croquettes, salmon rillettes, tortilla roll, baguette sandwich, and lemon tart.”

“N-no, I understand that.” Kuroyukihime shook her head, shaking off her surprise. “But why for me? And why so much?”

Haruyuki mustered up his courage to look at her squarely. Normally, he couldn’t quite manage to meet her eyes, but when he looked now, the face beneath her still-damp black hair was drained of color and there was just a hint of redness around her eyes…or so he felt. Almost as if she had been crying in the bath.

Kuroyukihime had seemed no different from usual after returning from the Unlimited Neutral Field, and then in the car, and when they’d parted in front of the school. But there was no way that could have been the case. A duel avatar was another self born from the mold of the wounds in a Burst Linker’s heart. Hers was caught in a deadly trap, so even if she was a level niner, one of the most powerful players in the Accelerated World, he couldn’t believe that she was okay with it.

“I thought if you had a feast,” Haruyuki answered, holding her eyes with his own, “you might feel better.”

“What?”

“You don’t seem to eat a lot usually, Kuroyukihime. So I wanted you to eat loads today at least and feel better.”

She remained dumbfounded for a moment. But then suddenly, she looked like she was laughing and crying at the same time. Tears welled up in her eyes as she blinked over and over and over. “Honestly, I can’t hide anything from you all. Fuko also kept asking me if I was all right when we parted.”

“That’s…It’s only natural,” he said. “You’re the type to really show it in your face, Kuroyukihime.”

“Hmph. I don’t need you telling me that.” Kuroyukihime pursed her lips and then smiled once more, and Haruyuki met her eyes again.

The faint sound of the air conditioner overlapped with the cries of the cicadas coming in through the soundproofed windows. At some point, the color of the light of the sun had grown deeper, producing a breathtakingly beautiful contrast in the face of Kuroyukihime with her back to the southern window.

Coming back to himself after a few seconds, Haruyuki lowered his head once more. “Um, I really am sorry for just coming over like this. We have the meeting this evening, too. So please eat. Just whatever here you feel like you could eat is fine. Okay, I’ll leave you to it then.”

He managed to get it all out without stuttering, but the palms of his hands were drenched with cold sweat. After looking at Kuroyukihime one last time, he stuffed the biodegradable plastic bag into the pocket of his trousers and turned on his heel.

He had taken three steps down the short hallway to the entryway when a sweet fragrance chased after him, and then something hit his back rather forcefully—a soft, slender body.

Pale arms hugged him tightly in his state of paralysis. He heard a faint murmur in his ear.

“Haruyuki.”

She continued in her usual tone, but still sounded somehow like a small child holding back tears.

“Please…Would you stay with me tonight?”

To be continued.